Ordinary Day
by drufan
Summary: Spoiler! tag for Irresponsible. You're no daisy. You're no daisy at all.


_A/N: Broke down and watched the new episodes…I'm weak. But, hey, Irresponsible fostered a new tag…so it's all good. Spoilers for anything up to and including Irresponsible and I make mention of my tag for Common Ground, A New Hobby._

_Disclaimer: By now, if you don't know that I am not affiliated in anyway with the TPTB associated with the Stargate Universe…then, now you do._

**Ordinary Day**

Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp was another of his heroes.

Pure as the driven snow kind of hero? Maybe not.

Model for living? Unequivocal yes.

Kolya meeting such an inconsequential end, like the Cowboys in _Tombstone_, was appropriate. Kolya deserved nothing more since he stepped across the line. He forfeited his hero's death the moment the Wraith's hand touched John Sheppard's skin.

_Nothing personal, my ass. _The crossing of the line always made it personal.

His dead body sprawled in the dirt with flies buzzing deserved nothing better in John's opinion. The flattery Kolya leveled at him before feeding him to a Wraith did not buy him anything better. Funny how life works. Sheppard honestly tried to redirect Kolya from crossing his path ever again. It was a shame turning the other cheek impressed nothing on his hated enemy.

Yes, he loved Evel Knievel. Even had a picture of the two of them in his quarters that was taken when John was ten or eleven. The show had been awe inspiring and spectacular. Evel made it look so easy to face death and to try and cheat it. How many times had John completely wiped out on a homemade ramp jumping his BMX? Band-aid was kept in business because of his buddies and him leaving skin on asphalt. Ah, but that was childhood.

While Evel was a daredevil capturing his eleven year old imagination, Wyatt was a bona fide killer and embodied his adulthood. His mother had a neighbor when she was growing up that was a journalist during the death throes of the old west. She would go over to his house and listen to stories of his travels. One such story involved interviewing Wyatt Earp. As the sun set on the wild west, this man talked to one of its icons, its gleaming tin star.

Only one piece of information caught a young John Sheppard's fantasy view of himself, a code, if you will. As he and his mother watched _My Darling Clementine _one wet summer afternoon, the fight at the OK Corral started on the small screen. John was glued to it as the Earps and Holliday walked down the dusty road. Her personal knowledge of the lead character who was calling out the Clantons slipped through her lips that afternoon.

"The movies glamorize these men, John. They aren't heroes. They only did what they thought had to be done, right or wrong. According to Mr. Richards, Wyatt Earp was not a nice person. He would just as soon shoot you as look at you."

That little piece of history stuck with John into adulthood and changed from fantasy into reality. John Sheppard never strived to be nice; he strived to do the right thing. He strived to give everyone a chance to do the right thing with or without his help. When they would not take the branch he offered, then John Sheppard did what had to be done. He did what he was trained to do.

For so long, John lived in the gray while meting out the black and white. In the heady days before he was a flyer, he did other things, not nice things. He definitely had not been the hero. He most definitely did a job similar to Batman, but he stepped on that line many times. Unlike Batman, he sometimes stepped over it, hence no hero.

He looked at the body for a second or two more and then looked at his team. He saw exactly what he had expected from each of them.

Rodney was in shock and if he waited a second more…there it was, a flicker of relief. Rodney's reaction should have held nothing else. A little "Oh my God!" and then a "Phew!" He should never know the callousness it took to kill with such dispassion. He should only dwell on that sense of relief.

Teyla's face held disappointment in him for not being above petty revenge. She had counseled him to not kill in cold blood, but it was _Kolya_. Sheppard had made a promise. A promise he had always intended to keep. He was not sorry in the least for the son of a bitch's death by his hand. It was what it was.

There was one surprise. The usually empathetic Carson stood over Kolya and made no move what so ever to help him or check him. His face unreadable, he looked at Sheppard without shock or an accuser's scowl. Sheppard realized that the good doctor wore more than one mask too. Apparently, they had more in common than John originally thought. Apparently, Carson could hold a grudge.

Lastly, Ronon would have to find a new hobby. Oh, Sheppard had known what was happening with his mysterious disappearances from the trading parties on different worlds. He had overheard some of Teyla's people discussing plans with Ronon. He appreciated the effort. In deference, Ronon looked approving and satisfied. He was the only one to give Sheppard a steady look in the eye, because he understood. Ronon had let his own little excursion into revenge slip over mulled wine one, late night, because, like Ronon, Sheppard understood.

Waxing poetic, John Sheppard had grown soft in his old age. A time had come in his life when he was tired of the down and dirty. He stepped back to distance himself from it and escaped into flying. It was killing with anonymity and he found he was damn good at it. He felt like he had reclaimed a part of his soul, but he was not worthy to reclaim all of it. It was too late for that. His soul was too fractured.

But, here in Williamsburg (a living history) brutality entered back into a part of his being. It did it in front of his team this time. One of the last times, solitude masked his handiwork as a necessity. The storm washed away his efficient hunt of men and the thrill it brought. He could have ended it there, but he offered that olive branch in the hopes that he could keep his soul form further withering away. Too bad Kolya and he were too much alike, and he could not accept the offering and walk away.

Even this day, he honestly tried to give the crafty bastard an out. To his credit, Kolya, looking haggard and world weary, did not take it. In this, Sheppard found his expectations met, once and again. The hiding must have taken its toll on the proud warrior, the one time hero of the Genii people, because he now lay dead at the town's people's feet in an ill fitting uniform with no heroic send off.

Ignominious, maybe.

Inevitable, oh yes.

This death brought out John's younger self and he did not like it anymore. That other John Sheppard would just as soon kill you as look at you because he had truly liked Wyatt Earp's style. He would have to work hard to get that killer put back in the box this time. That John Sheppard was not a hero and neither was the one staring at a dead enemy in the town square. No feelings of vindication or of remorse entered into the equation. This was just item number two getting checked off his list of things to do in Pegasus, and he hoped that that was not how he would always look at it.

Rodney had talked of heroes. Lucius even went so far as to recount embellished stories of the team to play the hero. Nothing heroic happened today. It was just an ordinary day in Tombstone.

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_A/N: The anecdote about the neighbor and Wyatt Earp is a little of my own family lore that I used in the story. I believe Wyatt Earp made a greenhorn nervous…but I thought it a neat bit of trivia for this tag._

_Davi deserved better, Kolya did not. Not a favored episode, but not hated. The town was all wrong, though. The team looked like they were interrupting October fest. Still, liked Shep's non-reaction to his gunfight and that is what caught my fancy. _


End file.
